What did Saddam know that required hanging him before his trials were finished? Did he threaten to talk? Is that what caused the Iraqi "government" to hang him so swiftly? Or is it simply that the Iraqi "government" knows that they are going to have a Saigon moment shortly, and hung Saddam in a panic that they might get overthrown before they got a chance to do so?
The latter, I suppose, is possible. But this picture keeps coming to mind...
Teh Donald may no longer be Secretary of Defense, but he wasn't the only former Reagan Administration official involved with Saddam during the 1980's. There's this other guy, for example. Guy by the name of "Dick Cheney". Wonder what dirt Saddam had on the Bigus Dickus? Oops, dead men can't sing like parrots, gosh darn, what a shame!
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Badtux, you're right as always. The unseemly haste with which Saddam was executed leaves a lot of unanswered questions. If nothing else, I would have liked to have seen the outcome of trials for the other crimes he was accused of -- the gassing 10,000 Kurds and so on. And yeah, it would have been great fun watching the bush administration twist and writhe, waiting to see if Saddam would get them in trouble.
ReplyDeleteOh, the correct form is "hanged", not "hung". Goes against all the grammatical rules we learned as kids, but what the hell. As one wag here in the tubes put it, "bad guys are hanged, horses are hung". Speaking of horses, I received an email last year informing me that "Chuck Norris is not hung like a horse, horses are hung like Chuck Norris".
Have a happy New Year!
Nobody listens to Robert Fisk anymore, but he does have good sources.
ReplyDeletehttp://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2114403.ece
saddam had beaucoup dirt on reagan and the bushes (both). one of the reasons they didn't go after him for the gassing of the kurds is that he would have said exactly where he got that gas, those planes, the botulism cultures, the anthrax, the CS, mustard, and nerve gasses. he got them from us. rummy made more than one trip to iraq while they were fighting iran to hand deliver sattelite and U2 and blackbird photos of the iranian troop arrays. they couldn't try him for the stuff he did while he was our asshole. the only message people are getting from this is that saddam was a lapdog that wouldn't quit barking when his masters told him to pipe down. so he was killed. yes, he was an evil motherfucker. no doubt about that. but he had to die, and quickly. this wasn't even a case of "victor's justice" unless you count muktada as the victor. word was, al-sadr made saddam's head the price of coming back into the government.
ReplyDeleteWell, I'm going to go with the fact that they are faster with their justice there instead of allowing things to drag on through many appeals.
ReplyDeleteWhatever he knew, does it really make any difference? What is important, yesterday, or tomorrow?
If "faster with their justice" you mean "faster with their show trials", then you may have a point, BBC. As for what does it matter, the same criminals who propped up Saddam during the 1980's are running our government today. Knowing their crimes of the 1980's might help keep them from committing more crimes today. That's why it's very useful (for them) that Saddam is no longer around to sing about their crimes...
ReplyDelete- Badtux the Crime Penguin
Saddam showed up everyone at the end. He was polite and respectfull to his American captors during his internment and when he was turned over to his executioners. He held his head high and proceeded to the gallows with dignity. He looked his tormentors in the eye and questioned their manliness for taunting a condemned man. he refused the hood, looked straight ahead and recited his prayers up until the moment he dropped through the gate. He even had a slight smile on his face as he faced those about to kill him.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how G W Bush would fare in the same situation.
I may have to post the unedited video of this after all.
d.